Neighbors decry MCCC solar array to cover 67 acres of former cropland

Joshua Rosenau / The TimesDoug Tindall, whose family has been farming in West Windsor since 1914, says MCCC's solar project conflicts with the zoning of the township, which is zoned primarily for agricultural and residential uses. The 67-acre solar installation is sited on land formerly used for farming.

WEST WINDSOR — When the Mercer County Improvement Authority began urging public institutions more than a year ago to put solar energy installations on their buildings, citing the benefits of energy savings, Mercer County Community College seized the opportunity.

Through the MCIA, the school secured financing to build one of the largest college solar installations in the country.

Patricia Donohue, president of the college, said the school had already studied the benefits of solar energy when MCIA put out the message that solar saved money.

“The solar farm will save critical dollars and enable us to restore to our budget many cuts in programs and services we have made over the past two years,” Donohue said last fall.

But as MCCC clears away trees and shrubs to make room for an array of solar panels to span 67 acres on its West Windsor campus, residents in the area are getting nervous about the scope of the project. They’re worrying that the field of steel and glass will mar the landscape of homes and farms that has set the scene in the township for generations.

“It’s a terrible business decision, a terrible planning decision, and, I believe, a terrible health and safety problem,” South Post Road resident Rich Campbell said of the solar project.

Campbell is one of a group of township residents who said the school is deliberately disregarding the community it is supposed to serve by going ahead with the project.

The school plans to build the 9.5-megawatt ground-mounted solar array on the eastern side of the campus on a parcel historically used as farmland. Construction is expected to begin this fall.

Donohue said the project will save the college $750,000 to $1 million a year in energy costs and prevent roughly 9,000 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

That’s equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide that would be absorbed by a forest of more than 500,000 mature trees.

Though the advantages for the school are clear, some people who live near the campus see the proposed solar array as risky and inappropriate for the area.

“I don’t think it is a good idea,” said Doug Tindall, whose family has operated a farm across the street from the college for nearly 100 years. “On the state master plan, this is considered a rural area where agriculture is preferred. On the county master plan, it’s a rural area where agriculture is preferred. The township is the same way.”

In years past, Tindall has farmed the parcel now reserved for the solar panels. He said the installation will likely displace a population of deer that roam there, pushing them onto land he continues to farm.

He voiced his concerns at public meetings and sent two letters to Mercer County asking officials to consider adding a wildlife management plan and to change fencing at the site to better accommodate agricultural uses in the areas around it.

“I haven’t heard anything back,” Tindall said.

Normally a solar project of this size would be subject to local zoning laws, but because the college is a public entity operating on county land, the local zoning board holds no power over the site or its development, said Gerald Muller, attorney for the West Windsor Planning Board.

Joshua Rosenau / The Times of TrentonSouth Post Road residents Marilyn Mangone Stoddard, Teresa Lourenco, Rich Campbell and Patricia Vizzoni say Mercer County Community College has turned its back on their concerns about 67-acre solar development on the school's campus. They're worried that drainage problems could affect the quality of the water to their homes, which depend on wells.

After an April 4 meeting with residents and site developer SunLight General Capital, Campbell and other homeowners who had doubts about the project decided to take action on their own. They set up an online petition against the proposed solar farm and drafted letters requesting a stay on its development.

With more than 200 signatures supporting the petition, the group’s concerns grew to include environmental safety, stormwater runoff, the economic viability of the site, and the potential loss of farmland.

“We have a lot of concerns and many of them are overlapping,” said Post Road resident Teresa Lourenco. She and neighbor Patricia Vizzoni spent time last week with Department of Environmental Protection officials to learn whether clearing trees at the site would affect the area enough to come under the department’s oversight.

The department has yet to determine if it can or should intervene, said DEP spokesman Larry Hajna.

An adviser for SunLight General Capital, Bill Zachary, said concerns about the financial viability of the project and the risk to taxpayers should the company fail are overblown.

“If SunLight were to go bankrupt that would not affect the county taxpayers at all, because the system is insulated from our economics,” Zachary said. “It’s a standalone entity. When we applied, our design was to come up with something that would be as safe as possible for the taxpayers.”

Addressing the residents’ environmental concerns, Zachary said there is nothing toxic in the solar panels that could leach into the water table and contaminate wells.

“The fact of the matter is that the system is entirely safe,” he said. “The panels themselves are silicon together with some copper, which is the same stuff used to bring water to your house. It’s all clean stuff that’s not going to cause an environmental issue at all.”

The group of concerned residents recognize that solar projects like the one proposed by the college can be beneficial, but the lack of solid, verifiable information has led residents to be pessimistic about the plan.

“They would have a lot less trouble from us if they just gave us information, any shred of information,” he said.

The West Windsor Township Council will hold a public discussion about the project during a meeting scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. tomorrow.